[engsr]

Honest question - how much experience do you have where you can say, "I was X seconds behind first and if I had Y tire, I would be at the top of the class"? If you are already a second or more behind the fastest time the decision between a Z2 or R-S3 (for example) is only going to be a few tenths, at best.

Let's look at it this way and I'm not a golfer, so don't shoot me if I mess up the terminology. You have driver A that's rated for (for argument's sake) 120 feet, and you have driver B that's rated for 125 feet. The experienced golfers are likely to use the B driver and if they are consistent enough they will probably get their shot within that range. But if there's someone that has less to no experience (like me lol), the choice of club doesn't matter. It's not going 125 feet and most certainly it's not going straight ahead.

So again, even if you have the same tires as the top person in your class, and you're still a second off, a "better" tire won't make up that difference. There's a delta there that's determined by your experience and a better tire only closes that delta (experience closes it more). And I was of course talking about the Extreme tires, like the R-S3, Z2 Star Spec, Rival, etc. since that's what you had mentioned initially.

I know this much, whenever I get bested in my class by a few tenths, I know it's not the tires or car for that matter.

EDIT - forgot the 2 in the 120 there.